July 23 board meeting recap, our conversation with Superintendent Austin, and what is coming this Thursday.
Dear FUEL Community,
It has been a busy summer. A lot has happened, and a lot is coming. We wanted to take a moment to catch you up and share what we are watching heading into fall.
The August 13 board meeting takes place this Thursday at 6:00 p.m. at Thurston Middle School Library, following the community listening session at 5:20 p.m.
Items of note:
Item 8A: 2026 Summer Learning and Enrichment Program Overview - We encourage families who participated to share their feedback and to follow the board's discussion of the program's future.
Item 9A: Board Visioning Process Discussion: Review of Draft Goals - The board will review six proposed district goals as part of the ongoing visioning process. No formal adoption is requested at this meeting. Staff is seeking feedback on clarity, emphasis, and measures of success.
The six proposed goals are:
The Laguna Experience; Mental Health
Wellness, and Digital Balance
Growth, Challenge, and Relevance for Every Learner
Policy, Governance, and Organizational Clarity
Reading Achievement and Engagement
Visual and Performing Arts.
Item 10 A: Governance Committee: Consideration for Approval of Standing Committee Status - The board will vote on whether to redesignate the ad hoc Governance and Policy Advisory Committee as a permanent standing committee. That is a consequential structural decision. We have more to say about this committee below.
Community Listening Session 5:20 p.m. | Open Session 6:00 p.m. | Link to Agenda | Link to Public Comment | Link to Watch.
We Met with Superintendent Austin
Some of the FUEL board members met with Superintendent Don Austin this summer. We shared our mission and values, what this organization is, who we are, and why we do this work. We brought our concerns from the past several months and he listened. We shared our commitment to his success, because his success is what is best for our students.
Dr. Austin came in focused on students. His vision for moving forward centers on building trust and making sure the right structures are in place so that staff and board members can each do their jobs effectively. That framing resonated with us, and it tracks with what he shared publicly at the July 23 board meeting. We look forward to continuing this relationship.
July 23 Board Meeting
July 23 was Dr. Austin's first full regular board meeting as superintendent and included the first of three planned visioning sessions. Here is what we saw.
A Few Structural Changes
At Dr. Austin's recommendation, the board made two changes to how meetings run: the district's attorney will no longer sit at the dais, and standing staff reports have been removed from the regular agenda. Both changes are designed to keep meetings shorter and more focused.
The First Visioning Session
The board held its first visioning discussion based on Dr. Austin's white paper. He framed it clearly: this is not a strategic plan or a checklist. It is the beginning of a process to define what excellence looks like for LBUSD on Laguna Beach's own terms, measured by local values rather than state rankings.
Each board member was invited to share individual priorities. Common themes surfaced: building a culture of reading, supporting social-emotional wellbeing, closing gaps for students in the middle, and protecting the arts. Screen time and hands-on learning also came up. These are values the community broadly holds, and hearing them reflected back is not nothing.
What was harder to see was depth and urgency from the some of the board. The themes were present, but the engagement felt thin. Leadership in education requires more than naming the right priorities. It requires the conviction and follow-through to act on them, and that was not consistently on display. Notably, one member of the majority used part of his comment time not to discuss education but to relitigate the Brown Act, which is covered separately below.
A New Program for Students
The board approved a new contract for the Futures program, a career exploration initiative that connects high school students with industry mentors, real-world problem-solving challenges, and potential internship opportunities through a partnership with the Laguna Beach Chamber of Commerce. We look forward to seeing the collaboration between district staff and the Chamber on this locally grounded, student-centered program.
Accountability
At the July 9 special meeting, Trustee Hills described the recently negotiated LaBUFA contract as a "good contract." On July 23, LaBUFA President Scott Wittkop corrected the record: staff faced two options, ratify or proceed to impasse, which risked significantly higher health insurance costs for members. The vote reflected limited options, not satisfaction. Our teachers and staff deserve to have that understood.
Trustee Malczewski raised two concerns in her board report. First, she participated in the investigation into the May 14 community demonstration but was never provided a contract authorizing the work, its scope, or the identity of the investigators. She noted the same pattern from the December 4 investigation into staff complaints: no scope, no specifics, no final report, despite repeated requests. Both investigations were initiated by the board majority. Her message was direct: trust is a school district's most valuable asset, and the conduct around these investigations is not building it.
Second, she addressed a public social media post from a board majority member suggesting Brown Act violations are simply part of doing business. She was unequivocal: "This is not how I view the Brown Act. I do not believe we should normalize violations of California open meeting laws or make jokes about them."
Trustee Hills on the Brown Act
That concern proved warranted before the meeting was over. During the visioning session, Trustee Hills argued at length that Brown Act compliance is not meaningful without specific intent to deprive the public of information, that the law "gets violated almost every time anybody gets together," and that it was "written by lobbyists for the education industry." Board President Morgan attempted to redirect him back to the agenda topic.
Every board member takes an oath to uphold the law. The Brown Act is California's foundational guarantee that public bodies conduct public business in public. For a sitting board member to characterize compliance as routine to ignore is not a legal argument. It is a signal about how that member views the obligations of the office. Trustees Hills, Morgan, and Perry make up the board majority. The social media post, the investigations, and Trustee Hills' comments at the meeting all point in the same direction.
Active complaints regarding this board's conduct under the Brown Act remain pending with the Orange County District Attorney and the ACLU.
Governance and Policy Advisory Committee
Trustee Hills recently held an introductory meeting for a new ad hoc Community Governance and Policy Advisory Committee and is accepting applications from interested community members. President Morgan also attended. The session focused on a Hills-selected subset of board policies, using the student board representative selection process as a case study. FUEL believes board time is best directed toward the decisions with the greatest impact on students and fiscal stewardship, and we will be watching to see whether this committee reflects those priorities.
Looking Ahead
The district's community listening sessions are Dr. Austin's first opportunities to hear directly from the community, on August 11 and August 13.
Tuesday, August 11 at 2:00 p.m. in Laguna Beach High School Quad
Thursday, August 13 at 5:20 p.m. at Thurston Middle School
On August 27 the board is expected to hold a governance-focused session tied to Dr. Austin's first-year visioning commitment. We hope to have more to share as it approaches.
Calendars are filling up fast. There will be school events, community forums, and candidate forums as the fall gets underway. FUEL is also working on an event of our own. More details to come soon.
